A comprehensive package of urgent policy solutions - informed by data, research and human rights principles - can change the way police serve our communities.

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End Broken Windows Policing

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End Broken Windows Policing

A decades-long focus on policing minor crimes and activities - a practice called Broken Windows policing - has led to the criminalization and over-policing of communities of color and excessive force in otherwise harmless situations. In 2014, police killed at least 287people who were involved in minor offenses and harmless activities like sleeping in parks, possessing drugs, looking "suspicious" or having a mental health crisis. These activities are often symptoms of underlying issues of drug addiction, homelessness, and mental illness which should be treated by healthcare professionals and social workers rather than the police.

policy solutions

End Policing of Minor "Broken Windows" Offenses

The following activities do not threaten public safety and are often used to police black bodies. Decriminalize these activities or de-prioritize their enforcement:

Establish enforceable protections against profiling to prevent police from intervening in civilian lives for no reason other than the "suspicion" of their blackness or other aspects of their identity. This should include:

Mental health crises should not be excuses for heavy-handed police interventions and are best handled by mental health professionals. Establish and fund Mental Health Response Teams to respond to crisis situations. These approaches have been proven to reduce police use of force in these situations by nearly 40 percent and should include:

a multidisciplinary co-responder team that includes mental health professionals, social workers and crisis counselors as well as specially trained police officers

involvement of this multidisciplinary team in planning, implementation and response to crises

Community Oversight

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Community Oversight

Police usually investigate and decide what, if any, consequences their fellow officers should face in cases of police misconduct. Under this system, fewer than1 in every 12 complaintsof police misconduct nationwide results in some kind of disciplinary action against the officer(s) responsible. Communities need an urgent way to ensure police officers are held accountable for police violence.

Policy Solutions

Establish effective civilian oversight structures

Establish an all-civilian oversight structure with discipline power that includes a Police Commission and Civilian Complaints Office with the following powers:

The Police Commission should:

determine policy for the police department based on community input and expertise

share policy and policy changes in publicly accessible formats

discipline and dismiss police officers

hold public disciplinary hearings

select the candidates for Police Chief, to be hired by the Mayor

evaluate and fire the Police Chief, if needed

receive full-time, competitive salaries for all members

receive regular training on policing and civil rights

not have current, former or family of police officers as members

select its members from candidates offered by community organizations

The Civilian Complaints Office should:

receive, investigate and resolve all civilian complaints against police in 120 days

For all stops by a police officer, require officers to give civilians their name, badge number, reason for the stop and a card with instructions for filing a complaint to the civilian oversight structure.

Limit Use of Force

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Limit Use of Force

Police should have the skills and cultural competence to protect and serve our communities without killing people - just as police do in England, Germany, Japan and other developed countries. In 2014, police killed at least 253 unarmed people and 91 people who were stopped for mere traffic violations. The following policy solutions can restrict the police from using excessive force in everyday interactions with civilians.

Policy Solutions

Establish standards and reporting of police use of deadly force

A. Authorize deadly force only when there is an imminent threat to an officer's life or the life of another person and such force is strictly unavoidable to protect life as required under International Law. Deadly force should only be authorized after all other reasonable means have been exhausted. (Ex: International Deadly Force Standard; Tennessee Deadly Force Law)

B. Require that an officer's tactical conduct and decisions leading up to using deadly force be considered in judgements of whether such force was reasonable. (Ex: LAPD Use of Force Policy)

C. Require officers give a verbal warning, when possible, before using deadly force and give subjects a reasonable amount of time to comply with the warning (Ex: Las Vegas Metro PD Policy)

Revised police use of force policies should protect human life and rights. Policies should include guidance on reporting, investigation, discipline, and accountability and increase transparency by making the policies available online. This use of force policy should require officers to:

report officers who have two or more use of force incidents or complaints in the past quarter

require officers to attend re-training and be monitored by an immediate supervisor after their first quarterly report and terminate an officer following multiple reports

C. Require police departments to notify the state when an officer is found to have willfully violated department policy or the law, committed official misconduct, or resigned while under investigation for these offenses. Maintain this information in a database accessible to the public (Ex: Illinois Law) and prohibit these officers from serving as police officers, teachers or other governmental employees.

Data shows that these use of force policy solutions are associated with fewer police-involved killings and killings of police officers. Learn more at UseofForceProject.org.

Independent Investigations and Prosecutions

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Independent Investigations and Prosecutions

Local prosecutors rely on local police departments to gather the evidence and testimony they need to successfully prosecute criminals. This makes it hard for them to investigate and prosecute the same police officers in cases of police violence. These cases should not rely on the police to investigate themselves and should not be prosecuted by someone who has an incentive to protect the police officers involved.

policy solutions

Lower the standard of proof for Department of Justice civil rights investigations of police officers

Allow federal prosecutors to successfully prosecute police officers for misconduct by passing legislation to eliminate the requirement that an officer must "willfully" deprive another's rights in order to violate Section 242.

Use federal funds to encourage independent investigations and prosecutions

Establish a permanent Special Prosecutor's Office at the State level for cases of police violence

The Special Prosecutor's Office should be:

required and authorized to prosecute all cases of where police kill or seriously injure a civilian, in-custody deaths and cases where a civilian alleges criminal misconduct against a police officer

equipped with an office and resources to conduct thorough investigations

required to have its Chief Prosecutor chosen from a list of candidates offered by community organizations

Require independent investigations of all cases where police kill or seriously injure civilians

The independent investigators should be:

required and authorized to prosecute all cases of where police kill or seriously injure a civilian, in-custody deaths and cases where a civilian alleges criminal misconduct against a police officer

required to investigate all cases where police kill chosen at random from a list of the largest ten agencies in the state

required to report their findings to the public

Community Representation

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Community Representation

While white men represent less than one third of the U.S. population, they comprise about two thirds of U.S. police officers. The police should reflect and be responsive to the cultural, racial and gender diversity of the communities they are supposed to serve.

Policy Solutions

Increase the number of police officers who reflect the communities they serve

Require police departments to develop and publicly report a strategy and timeline for achieving a representative proportion of police officers who are women and people of color through outreach, recruitment and changes to departmental practices (Ex: Connecticut Law)

Use community feedback to inform police department policies and practices

Require a regular survey (Ex: Milwaukee survey) to be fielded to the community to gauge their experiences and perceptions of the police and use this information to inform:

police department policies and practices

police officer evaluations

police officer pay incentives

Body Cams/ Film The Police

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Body Cams/ Film The Police

While they are not a cure-all, body cameras and cell phone video have illuminated cases of police violence and have shown to be important tools for holding officers accountable. Nearly every case where a police officer has been charged with a crime for killing a civilian this year has relied on video evidence showing the officer's actions.

Policy Solutions

Body cameras

Require the use of body cameras - in addition to dashboard cameras - and establish policies governing their use to:

record all interactions with subjects who have not requested to be kept anonymous

notify subjects that they have the option to remain anonymous and stop recording/storing footage if they choose this option

allow civilians to review footage of themselves or their relatives and request this be released to the public and stored for at least two years

require body and dash cam footage to be stored externally and ensure district attorneys and civilian oversight structures have access to the footage

require police departments, whenever they want to deny a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for body or dash cam footage, to prove in court that the footage constitutes a legitimate FOIA exemption (Ex: Illinois House Bill 4355)

permanently delete footage after 6 months if this footage hasn't been specifically requested to be stored

include a disciplinary matrix clearly defining consequences for officers who fail to adhere to the agency's body camera policy.

consider whether cameras or mandated footage are tampered with or unavailable as a negative evidentiary factor in administrative and criminal proceedings

prevent officers from reviewing footage of an incident before completing initial reports, statements or interviews about an incident

prohibit footage from being used in tandem with facial recognition software, as fillers in photo arrays, or to create a database or pool of mugshots. (Ex: Baltimore PD Body Cam Policy)

update privacy laws to protect civilians from having video or audio recordings released publicly that do not contain potential evidence in a use-of-force incident, discharge of a weapon or death.

Ban police officers from taking cell phones or other recording devices without a person's consent or warrant and give people the right to sue police departments if they take or destroy these devices. (Ex: Colorado Law)

Training

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Training

The current training regime for police officers fails to effectively teach them how to interact with our communities in a way that protects and preserves life. For example, police recruits spend 58 hours learning how to shoot firearms and only 8 hours learning how to de-escalate situations. An intensive training regime is needed to help police officers learn the behaviors and skills to interact appropriately with communities.

Policy Solutions

Invest in Rigorous and Sustained Training

Require officers to undergo training - including scenario-based training - on the following topics on at least a quarterly basis and involve the community - including youth of color - in their design and implementation:

Require the cost of misconduct settlements to be paid out of the police department budget instead of the City's general fund

Restrict police departments from receiving more money from the general fund when they go over-budget on lawsuit payments

Demilitarization

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Demilitarization

The events in Ferguson have introduced the nation to the ways that local police departments can misuse military weaponry to intimidate and repress communities. In 2014, militarized SWAT teams killed at least 38 people. The following policies limit police departments from obtaining or using these weapons on our streets.

Policy Solutions

End the Federal Government's 1033 Program Providing Military Weaponry to Local Police Departments

using SWAT teams unless there is an emergency situation or imminent threat to life and high-ranking officers have given approval (Ex: Cincinnati PD Policy)

conducting no-knock raids without probable cause to believe someone inside the home is an imminent threat (Ex: Cincinnati PD Policy)

accessing federal grant money or purchasing military equipment if the department has been recently found to demonstrate a "pattern or practice" of discriminatory policing

Fair Police Contracts

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Fair Police Contracts

Police unions have used their influence to establish unfair protections for police officers in their contracts with local, state and federal government and in statewide Law Enforcement Officers' Bills of Rights. These provisions create one set of rules for police and another for civilians, and make it difficult for Police Chiefs or civilian oversight structures to punish police officers who are unfit to serve. Learn more about how police union contracts help officers avoid accountability here.

Policy Solutions

Remove contract provisions, local policies, and provisions in state Law Enforcement Officers' Bills of Rights laws that:

allow officers to wait 48 hours or more before being interrogated after an incident

prevent investigators from pursuing other cases of misconduct revealed during an investigation

prevent an officer's name or picture from being released to the public

prohibit civilians from having the power to discipline, subpoena or interrogate police officers

state that the Police Chief has the sole authority to discipline police officers

enable officers to appeal a disciplinary decision to a hearing board of other police officers

enable officers to use the contract grievance process to have an outside arbitrator reverse disciplinary decisions and reinstate officers who have committed misconduct

prevent an officer from being investigated for an incident that happened 100 or more days prior

allow an officer to choose not to take a lie detector test without being punished, require the civilian who is accusing that officer of misconduct to pass a lie detector first, or prevent the officer's test results from being considered as evidence of misconduct

Keep officers' disciplinary history accessible to police departments and the public

Remove contract provisions, local and state policies, and provisions in state Law Enforcement Officers' Bills of Rights laws that allow police officers to:

expunge or destroy records of past misconduct (both sustained and unsustained) from their disciplinary file

prevent their disciplinary records from being released to the public via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request